There has been increased interest in recent years in water-dispersible synthetic fiber, especially of polyester fiber. Such water-dispersible fiber is used in various non-woven applications, including paper-making and wet-laid non-woven fabrics, sometimes as part of a blend, often with large amounts of wood pulp, or fiberglass, but also in applications requiring only polyester fiber, i.e., unblended with other fiber. This use, and the requirements therefor, are entirely different from previous more conventional use as tow or staple fiber for conversion into textile yarns for eventual use in woven or knitted fabrics, because of the need to disperse this fiber in water instead of to convert the fiber into yarns, e.g., by processes such as carding, e.g. in the cotton system. It is this requirement for water-dispersibility that distinguishes the field of the invention from previous, more conventional polyester staple fiber.
Most such water-dispersible polyester fiber is of poly(ethylene terephthalate), and is prepared in essentially the same general way as conventional textile polyester staple fiber, except that most water-dispersible polyester fiber is not crimped, whereas any polyester staple fiber for use in textile yarns is generally crimped while in the form of tow, before conversion into staple fiber. Thus, water-dispersible polyester fiber has generally been prepared by melt-spinning the polyester into filaments, combining the filaments to form a tow, drawing, applying a suitable coating to impart water-dispersible properties, generally in the same way as a finish is applied to a tow of conventional textile filaments, and then, generally without any crimping (or with imparting only some mild wavy undulations in some cases to provide extra bulk and a three-dimensional matrix), converting the tow into staple. Some prior polyester staple fiber has been prepared in uncrimped form, e.g. for use as flock in pile fabrics, but for such use, water-dispersibility has not been required.
Polyester fibers are naturally hydrophobic, so it is necessary to apply to the polyester a suitable coating, as disclosed by Ring et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,083, Hawkins in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,137,181, 4,179,543 and 4,294,883, and Viscose Suisse in British Patent No. 958,350, to overcome the inherent hydrophobic character of the polyester fiber without creating foam or causing the fibers to flocculate. It is this coating that has distinguished water-dispersible polyester fiber from more conventional polyester staple fiber, rather than any inherent characteristic feature of the polyester itself, or of its shape, such as the cross-section. Heretofore, so far as is known, the cross-section of all commercial water-dispersible polyester fiber has been round. Indeed the cross-section of most commercial polyester staple fiber for other uses has generally been round, because this has been preferred.
Although, hitherto, most synthetic polymeric water-dispersible fiber has been formed of polyester, being inexpensive and plentiful, increasing amounts of polyolefins and polyamides are beginning to be used for water-dispersible fibers, and so the invention is not limited only to polyesters, but covers other synthetic polymers.